Household Food Insecurity and Middle-Aged Women’s Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing in Rural Mozambique

Boaventura Cau, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane
Victor Agadjanian, Department of Sociology and the International Institute University of California - Los Angeles
Sarah R. Hayford, Ohio State University
Carlos Arnaldo, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane
Ines Raimundo, Eduardo Mondlane University

Food security is an essential dimension of health and wellbeing. Yet, few studies have examined the relationship between food insecurity and health and psychosocial wellbeing, including the mechanisms through which that relationship may occur. This study uses data from two waves of the Men’s Migrations and Women’s Lives longitudinal study conducted in rural southern Mozambique in 2017 and 2023 to examine the association of household food insecurity with middle-aged women’s physical health and selected measures of psychosocial wellbeing. In the preliminary analyses, we find that continuous food insecurity is significantly associated with average or poor self-rated health (Odds Ratio (OR)=2.91, p<0.01) and poor psychosocial wellbeing (feeling depressed: OR=2.81, p<0.01; feeling nervous: 1.82, p<0.01; feeling less or not satisfied with life: OR=4.38, p<0.01; feeling at the bottom of the satisfaction ladder: OR=1.76, p<0.01), net of other factors. We detect little evidence of a mediating role of household material asset building.